Hymn that built a nation

On 7 November 2025, India marks 150 years since Vande Mataram first appeared in print. Published in Bangadarshan on November 7, 1875 (Aurobindo, Bande Mataram, April 16, 1907), Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s hymn has travelled an extraordinary path: from poetic composition to a rallying cry for swadeshi, from banned slogan to national symbol. If Jana Gana Mana is the Republic’s formal pledge, Vande Mataram is its emotional cadence.

Bankim first released the hymn in Bangadarshan, the literary monthly he edited. It would later appear in the serialised edition of Anandamath in the March–April 1881 issue (Bangadarshan archives; R. C. Majumdar, History of the Freedom Movement in India, Vol. 1). In that novel, the motherland is imagined as three divine forms: the mother glorious, the mother fallen, and the mother restored. Sri Aurobindo would later interpret this imagery as “the Mother of his vision held trenchant steel in her twice seventy million hands” rather than a supplicant (Aurobindo, Bande Mataram, 1907). This fusion of literature and political devotion helped frame patriotism as a moral mission, not just a political position.

Music propelled the hymn beyond the page. Rabindranath Tagore set the song to music and first performed it at the 1896 Indian National Congress session in Calcutta (Proceedings of the 1896 Congress; Tagore’s letters, Visva-Bharati Archives). By then, the refrain was already circulating as an emblem of cultural pride.

Its political life ignited on August 7, 1905, when Bengal erupted against Curzon’s Partition. Contemporary newspapers including Amrita Bazar Patrika and The Bengalee recorded thousands of students marching towards Calcutta Town Hall chanting “Vande Mataram.” This marks the first documented mass political use of the slogan (Sumit Sarkar, Swadeshi Movement in Bengal; Government of India, Home Department Reports, 1905).

By 1905–06, the hymn had become inseparable from the Swadeshi movement. In North Calcutta, a Bande Mataram Sampradaya organised weekly prabhat pheris singing the song—recorded in the memoirs of Bipin Chandra Pal and Tagore’s own accounts (Pal, Memories of My Life; Tagore, Letters from Bengal). On May 20, 1906, Barisal witnessed a 10,000-strong procession carrying Vande Mataram flags (Barisal Conference Records, 1906), demonstrating rare cross-community participation at the movement’s outset.

Colonial authorities, unnerved by its influence, attempted to suppress it. The Government of Eastern Bengal and Assam issued circulars banning its recitation in educational institutions (Home Department Proceedings, 1906). In Rangpur, 200 students were fined Rs 5 each for chanting it (Rangpur District Gazetteers, 1907). Police crackdowns in Barisal (1906), Belgaum (1908), and Rawalpindi (1907) are detailed in the Indian National Archives and nationalist newspapers including Sandhya and Bande Mataram (edited by Bipin Chandra Pal, later joined by Sri Aurobindo). Suppression only amplified the song’s meaning, turning it into a moral test of courage.

The hymn’s reach was not confined to India. On August 22, 1907, Bhikaji Cama unfurled a tricolour flag bearing the words Vande Mataram at the International Socialist Conference in Stuttgart (British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/283). Madan Lal Dhingra’s final words before execution—“Vande Mataram”—were recorded in the British prison log (India Office Records, L/PJ/6/866). Paris-based Indian revolutionaries published a journal titled Bande Mataram from Geneva in 1909 (Bibliothèque de Genève archives). This global arc shows how the song united a diaspora already politically awakened.

Within India, the refrain resonated in diverse provinces. At the 1905 Varanasi session of the Indian National Congress, Vande Mataram was adopted for all-India occasions (Congress Proceedings, 1905). In 1908, Bombay crowds chanted it outside the police court during Tilak’s sedition trial (Bombay Chronicle, June 1908). On February 27, 1908, workers of the Coral Mills in Tuticorin marched with the slogan during a solidarity strike (Madras Presidency Labour Proceedings, 1908). These events, all well-documented, show the slogan’s diffusion from elite circles to working-class mobilisation.

Yet the hymn’s journey also intersected with debates on pluralism. Some Muslim leaders expressed concern about specific verses referencing goddess imagery (Debates of the Congress, 1937; Muslim League correspondence, Khilafat archives). This is why, in the Constituent Assembly, careful consensus-building occurred. Though the final decision on January 24, 1950 was unanimous and without recorded debate, earlier discussions (1948–49) had already produced a respectful compromise: the first two stanzas, which contain no theological imagery, would be used for official purposes (Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. XII; Rajendra Prasad’s statement). Prasad concluded:
“Vande Mataram, which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom, shall be honoured equally with Jana Gana Mana.”

As India marks 150 years of the song, this maturity offers guidance. Vande Mataram gained its moral power not because it was mandated, but because it was embraced. It united provinces, languages and classes because it emerged organically—from literature, from melody, from resistance.

Today, its legacy invites constructive reflection. The civic courage it inspired during the swadeshi movement translates, in the 21st century, to strengthening public institutions, environmental stewardship, and social dignity. The emotional vision of the motherland as beautiful and bountiful compels action on climate resilience, river restoration and urban liveability. The cross-community participation seen in 1906 Barisal echoes the need for inclusive national belonging today. 

Anniversaries risk becoming ceremonial. But Vande Mataram was never ornamental; it was functional. It worked—mobilising, uniting, inspiring. To honour it now is to let its ethos guide us: cultural self-confidence, civic responsibility and national unity without uniformity. That is how a 150-year-old song remains contemporary—by reminding us that patriotism is a practice, not a performance.

The author writes on politics and culture with a keen interest on how performance and rhetoric shapes the politics of power